Catch up - did you miss me?

Oh my gosh, busy January, how you thwart my blogging schedule!

Phew... it's been a busy month. Can't believe it's been more than two weeks since I last touched this thing. I kept meaning to blog but I spend so much time starting at a computer at work it's the last thing I want to look at on the weekends sometime and especially the week nights.

So time to play catch up. What have I been up to? Warning... I don't know why, but there are links all over the place with this post.

• W-2 Season. It kills me dead every year. There's just so much to do with the year end wrap up. I've kept my calendar relatively clear this month because I have to with my work demands. Not doing something every night though, I must admit, has been nice. Must continue to keep control over my schedule like I was forced to this month! I'm not going to bore you with the details of what I've been doing day to day at work. It's done, for the most part. I don't really want to think about it anymore.

• Won an award at work! Go me! It's basically an Employee of the Month program we have, except it's quarter based instead of monthly. Every quarter, they ask for employees to nominate their peers as the new One Team All Star -- basically the best of the best, an employee who always gives it their all and exemplifies the core values of the company. It's kind of a big deal.

My first trophy in forever!

• Have not been cooking a lot but I was able to try out a few restaurants I've been meaning to for awhile: BRC Gastropub on Shepherd -- so yummy! -- and Mother Teresa's in Lake Jackson. Authentic Italian food! So delicious. Chris and I went down to have dinner with some friends who live in LJ. Figured it was only fair, almost all the other times we've seen them, they've come up to Houston. 288 is a two way street!

• I've done some Zumba at Tropa Z Fitness. Not nearly as much as I should be doing, but things come up. I'll be better! And I have a year long membership that I'm going to be charged for each month. I MUST be better. I also used a Groupon deal with a friend that we both bought for Vault Houston - we tried out an intro class to Vault AIR-TONE. It was interesting... different. I'll try it again. And this Sunday, the same friend and I are going to enjoy another Groupon deal we bought for a class at S Factor. Pretty excited about that. I've tried out another pole dance workout class and enjoyed the class itself but not the location. 

• Successfully hosted a Slumber Parties party at my apartment this past weekend! Had to kick the boyfriend out for that. Slumber Parties is a direct sales, home party company for bedroom accessories. Let's just leave it at that? ;) My consultant is great - here's her website. My party is still open until the end of the month -- if you see something you want, contact her and let her know you were referred to her by me, Laura B. All of their products are great. I got $400 in product for $150, thanks to free or discounted merchandise hostess benefits! I had so many ladies in my apartment, oh my gosh, and it's really not that big, when you start talking about fitting 15 people in the living room. I actually  had to borrow folding chairs from E&A earlier in the week. I was looking at the RVSP list and the number of people who'd said yes, and looking at my living room, and the two recliners and one desk chair and four kitchen table chairs.... yea, that wasn't going to work. Thank goodness I was able to borrow chairs! Life savers!!

•  Finished reading The Hobbit! One book on the BBC Big Read List, down! And to stick with my 2013 reading challenge, 2 more to go! Or 12. But I still don't know if I'm that ambitious... We'll see. Next on the list... I think I'll try reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles.Got it for free on Amazon for my Kindle! 

• Ordered this -- The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia. It's a little embarrassing about how much I'm looking forward to getting this. But not really. If I wasn't a nerd, Chris and I wouldn't work as well as we do. 

• Loving on Pandora!!! Seriously, was I the last person in the world to discover how cool this thing is?

• Watched Spank! The 50 Shades Parody, a Fifty Shades of Grey parody. Pretty funny. It did inspire me to read more of 50 Shades, before I was only about one chapter in... Oh my god, it's so bad but oddly compelling. I don't understand it! I am so tired of reading about the main character's "inner goddess". Just call it what it is!

•  Got a new battery for my car. That was... thrilling. It could have been a lot worse though. I thought it was going to be much worse. Luckily I was off on Monday. So discovered my car wouldn't start, Chris tried to do a jump start, didn't work. Called my dad and told him the issues and he thought it might be something wrong with the relay. So Chris heads back to work and I call up Honda Care to set up a tow to a dealership. The tow truck comes by and takes a look and he is able to jump it! Yay! I guess the tow truck had a lot more juice than Chris' car, cos we did everything right. So then I headed over to AutoZone to get the battery tested and it was bad, so I bought a new one. The annoying this is now my car says Enter Code when I try to turn the radio on, since the battery was disconnected. Need to find my owners manual, I need the car-specific security code.

I think that's it...  Phew. And there's still a week left to this month. I need it to be February already!!

But then it'll be the month of All Star. Yikes.